enturies before hemophilia became a medically recognized blood disorder, the rabbis in the Talmudicera recognized its symptoms. The Talmud (

Yevamot

64b)relates Rabbi Judah the Prince’s ruling that if a woman’s

rst two children died from blood loss after circumcision, the

third son should not be circumcised. Rabbi Simeon ben Gamlieldisagreed and ruled that the third son may be circumcised, but if this infant died then the fourth child should not be circumcised. These two Rabbis agreed that the abnormal bleeding washereditary, but disagreed as to how many repetitive events were

required to establish a pattern and therefore exempt a child fromcircumcision. While three events are usually required by Jewish

law to establish a pattern, Rabbi Judah ruled that in matters of life and death, two repetitive events were enough to establish atrend. The Talmud continues with another story about four sistersfrom

Tzippori

. It related that the rst three sisters each had a son

who died from circumcision, and when the fourth sister had her

rst son, she came before Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel and asked

him if she should circumcise her newborn. Rabbi Simeon benGamliel ruled that her son should not be circumcised. This ruling shows that Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel thought the disease waspassed down maternally. The Talmud goes on to state that somefamilies have “

Rafei D’ma”

(loose blood), while others do not.Since the cases discussed here involve sons with bleeding dis-orders, the Rabbis were probably talking about a recessive muta-tion transmitted on the X chromosome. Females have a muchlower risk of being affected by disorders that are carried on the

X chromosome, since a decient gene with a recessive mutationon one X chromosome can be masked by the equivalent normal

gene on their second X chromosome. However, males who have

a decient gene on an X chromosome are always affected, since

they do not have a second X chromosome to compensate for thedefect. The disease discussed in the Talmud, thus, was most likely a maternally-transmitted hereditary bleeding disorder.

Later codiers of Jewish law based their rulings for circumci

-sion of hemophiliacs on these Talmudic discussions. Rabbi Is-sac Alfasi, an eleventh-century scholar, ruled that the law was inaccordance with Rabbi Judah the Prince. Moses Maimonides, a well-known scholar and physician who lived in the twelfth cen-tury, added to Rabbi Judah’s ruling and stated that even if the

rst two sons who died after circumcision were from different

husbands, the third son should not be circumcised. Instead, thesurgical procedure should be postponed until the child maturesand establishes his strength. Rabbi Yosef Karo, in his commen-tary on Maimonides, cited the above Talmud and stated that thedisease being discussed involves loose blood and is hereditary. Although Maimonides believed that this bleeding disease was maternally transmitted and that an abnormal bleeding pat-tern could even be established in siblings who were only mater-nally related, other commentators held that the disorder could betransmitted by either parent. Rabbi Jacob Reischer, among others,

ruled that if a man’s rst two sons died from loss of blood after

circumcision, the third son should not be circumcised. Althoughthere was some debate as to whether the bleeding disorder couldbe paternally inherited, everyone agreed that it could be passed onfrom the mother. Fred Rosner [1] has reviewed this in detail. A simple reading of these sources indicates that the bleeding disorder being discussed is hemophilia. Hemophilia is a genetic

bleeding disease which is caused by a deciency in one or more

protein clotting factors. Clotting factors work in a chain reaction,and each protein is needed in order to complete the reaction and

cause the blood to clot. When there is a deciency in at least one

of the plasma clotting factors, the body’s ability to control bleed-ing is impaired. The two most common forms of hemophilia arehemophilia A and hemophilia B. Hemophilia A is caused by a lack of clotting factor VIII, while hemophilia B is caused by a lack of clotting factor IX. Both of these forms are inherited as X-linkedrecessive genes, so most hemophiliacs are male and the gene ismaternally inherited. The severity of the disease depends on the

individual. Although for some hemophiliacs scrapes and cuts canbe life-threatening, others only experience complications during surgery and internal bleeding [2]. Although Maimonides believed that the bleeding disease wasonly passed down maternally, he was also of the opinion that thedisorder would improve over time and that the child could un-dergo circumcision at a later age. Hemophilia generally does notimprove over time. Additionally, in Maimonides’s discussion of

delaying the time of circumcision, he does not directly quote the

passage of Talmud that discusses hemophilia. Instead, he bringsa case where the circumcision “enfeebled his strength”, and doesnot talk about a thinning of the blood. Therefore, it is possiblethat Maimonides was not referring to a blood disorder, but to adifferent disorder altogether. As mentioned above, there was a disagreement among theRabbis as to whether the faulty gene was only able to be transmit-ted from the mother or whether it could also be passed down fromthe father. It is possible that the Rabbis who believed the bleeding disorder could be passed down from the father were referring toa third type of hemophilia, known as hemophilia C. Hemophilia

C, caused by a deciency of clotting factor XI, is transmitted as

an autosomal recessive and can therefore be passed down fromeither parent. Additionally, while it only makes up 2-3% of thoseaffected with hemophilia, it predominantly occurs in Jews of Ash-kenazi descent [2]. It is possible that the Rabbis referring to thisblood disorder were in fact discussing hemophilia C. While it can be suggested that the different rabbinic commen-tators were indeed referring to different blood disorders and notjust hemophilia, the Talmud and Rabbi Isaac Alfasi’s suggestionsthat the child should not be circumcised imply that even whenthey get older they should remain uncircumcised. Their answers,especially in comparison to Maimonides’s ruling that circumcisionshould merely be pushed off, suggest that the bleeding disorder

they were referring to was indeed hemophilia. When the rst ac

-curate description of hemophilia in medical literature was initially

discussed in the nineteenth century, it served as a conrmation of

what the rabbis noted and recorded in the Talmud many centuriesago [3].In evaluating the rabbinic response to the various bleed-

ing disorders, it must be remembered that these rabbinic gures

only wrote about what they themselves came into contact with in

their own communities. They did not have access to the scientic

knowledge that we do today. Hemophiliacs and people with otherblood disorders were diagnosed solely through their sibling histo-ry. Some believed that those affected by bleeding disorders could

mature and become stronger, and therefore be t to undergo cir

-cumcision at a later time. Others felt that individuals who wereaffected by blood coagulation diseases should at no point in theirlives be circumcised. However, no rabbi would have stated thata known hemophiliac should ever be circumcised. Since the rab-bis did not have a detailed understanding of hemophilia, it couldhave been possible that its symptoms were confused with thoseof neonatal morbidity. Thus, certain rabbis did not easily distin-guish between these two disorders and ruled that circumcisionshould be performed once the child matured and grew stronger. While hemophilia was once considered a dangerous, and evenfatal disease, recent medical advances have led to greater controlover its symptoms. Although there is still no cure for hemophilia,those affected by the disease can be treated with regular injectionsof a clotting factor replacement, depending on which form of hemophilia they exhibit [2]. The availability of treating a child affected by hemophilia with clotting factors before and after a surgical procedure ledRabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach to rule that according to Jewishlaw, circumcision should be performed on hemophiliacs. Accord-ing to Rabbi Auerbach, the dearth of clotting factors is not reasonenough to prohibit circumcision, since supplemental clotting fac-tors may be injected and the person’s blood clotting system willtemporarily behave normally during and after the surgical pro-cedure. Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth challenged this opinion, andstated that as long as there is no cure for hemophilia, temporary treatments should not be depended on and do not change thechild’s status as a hemophiliac. Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg ruled that, in relation to an adult male convert candidate whois medically unable to safely undergo circumcision, the personcannot, according to Jewish Law, accept the risk and be circum-cised. However, this judgment was given at a time when clotting treatments were not yet available. In his manuscript, Rabbi Dr.Richard Weiss concluded that since current treatments in surgery for hemophiliacs do exist, such an adult convert should undergocircumcision [4]. There is some thought of using laser technology for circumcision on hemophiliacs. The reader is directed to Dr. J.David Bleich’s article on laser circumcision for more informationon this subject [5]. Although the Talmudic rabbis prohibited circumcision frombeing performed on a known hemophiliac, today’s medical ad- vances should be taken into account when deciding whether anaffected individual should undergo circumcision. Modern tech-nological discoveries made in surgical procedures pertaining tohemophilia and other blood disorders can be applied to circumci-sion. Thus, it may be possible for affected individuals to undergocircumcision with special safeguards and precautions in place.